Avengers by Jason Aaron vol. 2: World Tour

I was somewhat lukewarm on the first volume of Aaron’s “Avengers.”  It was the kind of “Go Big” story that started the series off at full tilt, leaving you unsure where the series could go from there.  Fortunately this second volume shows that the writer does have a plan for where he wants this series to go. The key words for that direction in this volume are “smaller” and “weirder” as it kicks off with an origin story for one of the “Avengers of 1,000,000 B.C.” before seguing into a nice, low-key downtime issue as the team gets to know each other inside their new headquarters inside a dead Celestial.  This leads directly into a story about Namor and his new aquatic superhero team and their war against the surface, the introduction of the Squadron Supreme of America, and the establishment of the Agents of Wakanda.

None of these stories even attempts to match the opening arc’s balls-to-the-wall intensity and that turns out to be a good thing.  Aaron makes it clear that he’s playing the long game here with lots of interesting setup for future storylines. This sense of planning elevates a quaint storyline like Namor’s as you recognize all the competing agendas which lie below its surface (pun intended).  I also like the fact that he’s positioning the team as being generally successful in its agenda, with T’Challa giving it a leg up on operating intelligence thanks to his Agents, which makes the sinister plans occurring around them more interesting than frustrating to observe.

One thing that the first volume did better was artistic consistency.  Ed McGuinness and Paco Medina worked well together to give the first volume a fittingly over-the-top look.  McGuinness returns here, but only for parts of certain issues. He does solid work wherever he arrives, as do the likes of Sara Pichelli, David Marquez, and Cory Smith (with Adam Kubert, Frazer Irving, and Andrea Sorrentino pitching in on the anniversary issue).  Their presences guarantee that this volume looks good, but at the cost of issue-to-issue stylistic consistency. Which is something that deserves to be fixed as the storytelling here deserves a more consistent artistic vision.